Smith as Speaker

Hedrick Smith – Straight Talk About America Today

Hedrick Smith is an experienced speaker with excellent reviews. He has delivered lectures and presentations on university campuses, at business conventions, to civic groups and to such varied community lecture series as the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, Seattle Town Hall, the Union League of Chicago, Boston University Library, and the Emerson Center in Vero Beach, Florida.

For his presentations, Mr. Smith draws on his wide-ranging New York Times and PBS documentary reporting to deliver penetrating analysis of public policy issues and contemporary social, economic and political problems, spiced with humor, anecdotes and personal vignettes. He is especially good during question-and-answer sectors with his audiences.

His new best-selling book, “Who Stole the American Dream?” provides a rich source of material for lectures on the major power shift that has transformed the landscape of power in Washington since the late 1970s; on the ”wedge economics” that have created glaring inequalities in the U.S. economy, leaving the middle class stuck in a rut; on the accidental beginnings of the 401 (k) system that is now heading nearly half of the Baby Boomer generation for poverty in retirement; on the “upside down mortgages” of the 2000 decade that moved $6 trillion in accumulated wealth form mostly middle class homeowners to Wall Street banks and wealthy investors over the past decade; on the million foreigners working in the U.S. pushing Americans out of high tech jobs.

As a reporter, Hedrick Smith talks to Americans high and low. Since the 1960s, he has covered six American presidents and their administrations. His wide-ranging contacts enable him to take audiences inside Wall Street and behind the scenes in the Washington power game, and also to capture ordinary Americans Main Street struggling with today’s tough economics and polarized politics – jet airline mechanics,small businessmen, real estate brokers, software managers, and many more.

To see Hedrick Smith in action as a speaker and on television interviews click here.